I think I'm blessed with a pretty tough psyche.

Fame in itself is, you know... It involves a whole discussion on just that word, 'fame.' It's a power; it's another degree of power, to be famous. I think it's obvious: you have more influence the more well-known you are. And, hopefully, it's righteously used.

I hated being typecast in those roles. It was personally limiting, only playing stereotyped heavies. But I got those roles because I was angry, because that's what I projected. I was angry at my mother and father because they didn't get along, angry at the church. On top of that, I had an extreme lack of self-confidence.

I like to watch 'Paris, Texas,' but I have no desire to see it. I did it.

I like to stay home and watch television. The Game Show channel, mostly.

I realized early on that if I became an actor, I could play a writer and a sculptor and a painter and be all the things you just don't have time to be in your lifetime. I could get to learn about all of them.

I was the classic killer. I always played an angry man. I think it was because I used to really be like that - I was hostile. And because I had a good sense of theatrical truth, I used my anger and rebelliousness and just went with it. Anger was just a part of me.

I never liked being ordered around - which, of course, was an overreaction. I eventually found out that I didn't mind being ordered around at all when it was by someone who knew what he was doing.

I sing and play guitar and harmonica. I've been doing it for a long time.

My favorite films are 'Paris, Texas' and 'Repo Man.'

You want people walking away from the conversation with some kernel of wisdom or some kind of impact.

The most terrifying thing for most everybody in the whole Western World is to take responsibility for your own life and to experience real freedom.

I was offered a series by John Carpenter after I did the movie 'Christine,' and I would've been a leading man after that. I would have played a private investigator. And I was offered a great deal - I would be involved in the direction, casting, everything, and whatever. It was whatever an actor wants, and I didn't take it.

You want people to feel something when you tell a story, whether they feel happy or whether they feel sad.

But I'm not imaginative. I couldn't look into the future, like Star Wars or Robots or anything like that.

I know little stories that happen to people around me, and I can repeat that in a way that has some color.

California is full of Mexican culture and Mexican music.

Heisenberg, Max Plank and Einstein, they all agreed that science could not solve the mystery of the universe.

I don't believe in singing lessons. You can sing or you can't.

I have a good ear for languages.

I play myself all the time, on camera and off. What else can I do?

I really liked the Mariachi singing in Westerns.

I took speech training. I took a few voice lessons in college.

I've never been ambitious about recording.

Speech lessons probably did more for my singing voice - they teach you breathing, resonance.

The band I've played with for 10 or 12 years now, we've been all over, but we mostly play in LA.

I was in a movie called 'Twister,' and in it, I had to hit a golf ball off of a roof with a driving wood. The guy who owned the place where we shot showed me how to do it, and I hit the ball about 150 yards.

I'm very fortunate. I don't think anyone should have a job that they don't really enjoy.

I change every day. I'm still changing.

I've always been a searcher - you know, a hunter. I'm certainly not the only one. They say actors shouldn't get political and everything, but you can't separate yourself. You can't disconnect yourself from anything.

I've never seen a Western that was really truthful. Most are just morality plays. Good guys and bad guys - and the good guys always win, whereas in reality, most of the sheriffs were as bad as the gangsters they were after.

I watch television. Game shows - I hate the hosts and the people on them, and I love the questions and the answers.

There is no self.

My sister tells me I began singing before I could even talk. My first performance was of a song called 'My Blue Heaven,' which I began singing when I was a year and a half.

The first music I remember hearing was the traditional songs of Kentucky - things like 'Roll Along Kentucky Moon.'

I don't recall what the first record I bought was, but I definitely remember hearing Creedence's 'Born on the Bayou' and going out and buying it. The guitar and drums in that band were really good. I loved the words to the title track, and Fogerty's voice sounded just great.

For a musician to be good, he has to have humanity and care about the other guy. And as for blues - in a sense, black people have kept this country alive and given us our entire musical heritage.

Study up on the Eastern religions. They're the only ones that are realistic. There's no answer, see.

There is no answer. That's what Buddhism says. The Void, oblivion, no answer. To be in that state is an enlightened state.

I just wasn't psychologically made to get married or, God forbid, be a father.

I like to do nothing.

I do all the classics, like Dylan, Kristofferson, Jimmy Reed, Mexican mariachi songs, some jazz songs from the '30s. Cole Porter's 'Begin the Beguine,' that's one of my favorites.

I've got a pretty iconoclastic attitude about all institutions myself. And I just think the church was corrupted right after Christ was killed.

I've been blessed. I've worked with a lot of good people.

Casting is a convoluted kind of trip. No one likes to be typed - even if you're a cab driver, or whatever you do.

I met Dylan on 'Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid.' We buddied around for quite a while after that. We jammed together; he liked my Mexican songs.

I have to wait and see what happens. Because nobody's in charge.

I can't stress too much how much Ry Cooder was an influence on me. Having one of the most respected musicians around like my singing really gave me the confidence to do it.

People kept asking me, 'When are you singing again?' so I kept doing it. It was that simple.

People know you as an actor, and labels are so comfortable for people. That syndrome is always hard to get past.